By now you have received several e-mails from SAS about EVAAS, Educator Value Added Assessment System. If you haven’t logged in, now is the time. Check your e-mail for a message from SAS to get your username and password. Use the forgot-my-password link if you can’t find your password.

Why should you check EVAAS? Here are a few reasons:

Teacher Effectiveness Rating
Based on test scores for your students, it can tell you your standard six rating. In fact, it shows your rating on all six standards from the teacher evaluation instrument. This rating shows, on average, how much above or below expected performance your students did, based on a comparison with the students in schools with a similar testing performance history.

School Effectiveness Rating
For teachers who don’t have personal testing data, your rating (Exceeds, Meets, or Does Not Meet Expected Growth) is based on the school data. EVAAS shows you that data and where it comes from.

Data Breakdown
EVAAS can break down that testing data into quintiles–students predicted to score in the lowest 20%, bottom 20-40%, etc.–which shows the impact your course had on the testing performance of certain groups of students. Within these groups, you can look at individual students to see their scores, projected scores, and testing history.

Testing Projections
EVAAS allows you to build a class list of all your students. You can manipulate that list into groups based on projected performance, and you can attain projected testing performance on the EOC or VOCATS test you give. And if you don’t give that sort of test, you can use ACT projections or reading test projections to attain lexile data. This sort of projection tells you if certain students have typically struggled in your subject area, but it can also suggest where a student might be underperforming and can help counselors identify students who should be enrolling in honors and AP courses but have chosen to avoid them.

EVAAS won’t change your life, but it is a tool to provide some data. I will teach those teach EOC-tested courses, and anyone else who is interested, how to build classes in EVAAS and how use the data.